FDD wrote: ↑28 Jul 2024, 01:30
My opinion is that experimenting with CL was investment in problems solving and further development.
CS is not on CL level to bring the car at the very limit and to "draw" clear picture to the eng. in order to choose the right path of development. So I think that was an excellent move and I hope that first results we'll see in 2nd or 3rd race after the summer brake. Most probably Ferrari's biggest problem is lacking the floor efficiency in generating enough DF in respect to RB and McL and porpoising just worsened the situation even more, your view on this?
I think having Leclerc experiment with setup was more due to the fact that Sainz is leaving and they can't really have him learn some critical new stuff and take it to another team in a few months. On the other hand, Mercedes was experimenting more with Hamilton and he's leaving, so who knows...
Since Miami, Ferrari floor is slightly behind both RB and McLaren indeed. Barcelona floor was likely equal to those two teams, but due to inappropriate suspension and aero interaction they suffered from bouncing in corners. I don't think their suspension is flawed beyond repair, but it's not an easy thing to keep many different suspension parameters within limits and also keep tyres working within limits. A different floor might cause different amplitude and frequency of bouncing and you need to do review damper, spring and ARB settings completely because of that.
They lost a lot of time with SF23 and they are catching up, but it takes time. I think their overall development deficit is now cut from 6+ to 2-3 months behind RB and McLaren. We can see with RB that having a car with limited development potential is a big problem in a season